Digital Memorial Export and Account Control Checklist

Direct answer and scope

A useful export review begins with a written content list rather than a general promise of portability. Ask whether the export includes the selected memorial text, images, descriptions, dates, and other identified material. Ask which metadata accompanies the files, how the folders are organized, and whether documentation explains the structure. Do not assume that a browser-saved copy captures every selected item or preserves any function associated with the hosted version.

Record the status of each relevant version separately. Questions may cover source material, an approved version, a display version, an exported version, and supporting documentation, but no particular set of versions is required by the supplied guidance. Descriptive file names, organized files, and documentation of folder structure are preservation topics to discuss without prescribing a format, resolution, naming system, or technical specification.

Keep possession and copyright in separate records. Ownership of a copy containing a work does not itself transfer copyright in that work. Delivery of a photograph, portrait file, print, or memorial export therefore should be distinguished from permissions concerning reproduction, editing, distribution, display, publication, archiving, or authorization of later uses. The relevant agreement and other primary records must be examined without assuming who owns a copy, who holds copyright, or what a planned use permits.

Account and continuity questions also require separate answers. Identify who controls the hosting account, domain, destination, redirect, and any human-readable fallback, then document the handoff process for each relevant layer. The presence of a QR image or link does not answer those control questions. No current vendor manifest establishes any export, account-control, hosting, backup, restore, processor, privacy, succession, or continuity value.

How to use the official evidence

Use Library of Congress personal digital archiving guidance as a preservation-method source, not as evidence about a particular memorial service. Its guidance supports identifying important web content, exporting selected information, retaining useful metadata, organizing files, keeping copies in different places, and checking periodically whether saved files remain readable. Those steps do not establish what a vendor supplies, whether an export preserves hosted functions, or whether a given format will remain readable.

Use Copyright Office guidance to frame separate questions about copies and permissions. Ask what files or physical items will be delivered, and ask independently what written permissions address reproduction, editing, distribution, display, publication, archiving, and later use. Official copyright guidance does not resolve the parties’ rights, the effect of an agreement, or whether a specific use is allowed.

Use California privacy sources only after treating California residency and covered-business status as separate applicability questions. For a potentially covered business, locate its current privacy notices and request methods. Ask where account, photograph, memorial, visitor, commission, and support data flow; what purposes are stated for each category; and what written retention, deletion, and correction routes apply. The official regulations hub is the route for current regulatory text when more detail is needed, but it does not establish any vendor’s practices.

Use the Federal Trade Commission business guide to organize questions rather than to evaluate a vendor. Request an inventory of relevant data, the reason each category is requested, where it moves, who receives it, which outside service providers participate, what safeguards are described, how disposal is addressed, and what incident planning is documented. Keep inventory, access, protection, disposal, and incident planning as separate evidence states instead of treating a policy statement as proof of operations.

Decision framework

Start with the control layer. Request primary documentation identifying the party that controls each relevant account, domain, destination, and redirect, along with the documented continuity handoff. Record absent documentation as unresolved. Do not use control of one layer as evidence of control over another, and do not treat a QR image as evidence about the destination or account behind it.

Next, define the export layer. List the selected content and versions, then request an itemized statement of what the export contains, what metadata accompanies it, and how its folder structure is documented. Ask what is required to read the exported material and which elements, if any, still depend on the original service. Test a possessed copy separately from the hosted memorial and record the date and result of each readability check without projecting future performance.

Then separate copies by custodian and location. Record the service-held copy, commissioner-held copy, and any independently held copy as different evidence states. Library of Congress guidance recommends multiple copies in different places and periodic readability checks, but an unverified copy should not be counted. Copy possession also remains distinct from copyright ownership and permissions.

Finally, map data handling. Ask which categories are collected, why they are needed, where they move, who receives them, which processors participate, and what the written retention, disposal, deletion, correction, and incident terms say. For California privacy questions, verify residency and covered-business status before drawing conclusions about applicability. Preserve every unanswered vendor-specific field as unknown.

Limits and what to verify next

No validated vendor or platform documentation is attached for privacy practices, security measures, retention, deletion, processors, incidents, account control, export contents, file formats, backups, restoration, pricing, availability, or succession. Vendor-specific values must therefore remain unknown until current primary evidence is separately validated. Official preservation, copyright, privacy, and business-security materials provide different question sets; they should not be combined into one standard.

Request the current contract, export specification, account-control documentation, privacy notice, request routes, processor information, retention and disposal terms, and continuity handoff that correspond to the contemplated service. Compare each document with the content inventory and version list. Verify current California requirements through the official state sources when applicability matters, and use the Library of Congress material separately for preservation methods.

Evidence behind this page

Each point below is restricted to what the cited primary source supports. Administrative listing status is not a quality endorsement.